Chapter 10 #2
The next few days drag like barbed wire under my skin.
Every glance at Rhett is torture. Watching the way his shoulders move beneath his shirt when he hefts a hay bale, the way his throat works when he tips his head back to drink, the slow flex of his hands as he coils rope.
Each small thing is a reminder of the way he denied me when I was seconds from breaking.
My body won’t forget. Won’t let me breathe without remembering the heat of his mouth, the rough scrape of his tongue, the single taste he allowed us before pulling away.
On the fourth day, shame gnaws at me, but it’s drowned beneath the thrum of want.
Every time his arm brushes mine, every time his eyes cut to me and linger, I feel it coil tighter—low and sharp and impossible to ignore.
By late afternoon, I’m strung too tight to endure another second.
I slip into the barn while he’s out back, my pulse hammering, sweat prickling my skin beneath the heavy heat.
The air smells of hay, leather, and dust, thick and suffocating.
I press my back to a beam. My hand moves before my brain can stop it, sliding past the waistband of my jeans, desperate fingers finding the ache that has lived in me for four freaking days.
A whimper slips past my lips, helpless. My hips rock forward, greedy, chasing him in my head.
His mouth. His voice. His eyes when he told me no.
“God, Rhett…” The words fall from me on a moan, thick and broken.
And then I feel the shift of air, the weight of another presence.
My eyes snap open.
He’s there.
Leaning against the stall door like he’s been there all along, arms crossed, eyes dark with something unreadable.
My stomach drops, heat rushing to my cheeks, but my hand doesn’t stop. I can’t stop. My body is too far gone, clawing toward a release I’ve been denied too long.
He moves slowly, pushing off the door and crossing the barn until he looms over me. The sound of his boots on the dirt floor echoes like thunder in my chest.
Then his hand catches my wrist. For a breath, hope spikes that he’ll take me. But he doesn’t. He drags my hand lower, back where I want it, pressing until my fingers rub slick against my swollen need.
“Don’t stop now.” His voice is dark silk, curling around me like smoke. “You wanted to sneak off and do it? Then do it. But you’ll do it while I watch.”
I tremble, my breath stuttering, yet my body obeys. My fingers move because he commands it, pleasure sparking through me sharper now, crueler, because he’s here, watching.
His thigh braces against mine, his mouth lowering until his breath is fire against my ear.
“Louder,” he growls, his tone a blade of want and control. “I want to hear every sound you make while you fall apart for me.”
A moan rips free, helpless and raw, my hips jerking against my own hand as heat licks up my spine.
There’s no hiding now, no pretending I can resist him.
Every stuttered gasp, every broken cry belongs to him.
And as the edge looms sharp and blinding, I know the truth—I’ll break here, not because I’m alone, but because Rhett Slade is watching me come undone, and I can’t stop it.
I’m so close I can taste it. My thighs quiver, my stomach pulls tight, the wave rising sharp and merciless.
“Rhett—” His name tears from my throat, broken, a plea and a surrender all at once.
That’s when he moves.
His hand clamps around my wrist, tearing me away from myself, denying me just as the world is about to splinter apart. The sudden emptiness rips a sob from my chest, hot and strangled, my body convulsing in frustration, need crashing with nowhere to go.
“No. You don’t get to come unless it’s on me.”
My body shakes, raw and unsatisfied, my wrist caught firm in his grip.
Tears sting my eyes, humiliation burning through me even as the ache throbs sharper, needier than before.
My chest heaves, the denial cutting deeper than before, leaving me shaking and empty, my body screaming with need.
I try to turn away, to hide my face, but Rhett’s grip is iron at my chin, forcing me to look at him.
Then, slowly, he lifts the hand he pinned.
My fingers are slick, trembling in his grasp.
He brings them to his mouth, his tongue dragging hot and rough over the evidence of my desperation.
My breath stutters, a helpless shiver coursing through me as I watch him taste me like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“So fucking sweet,” he rasps, his gaze never leaving mine.
His lips close over my fingertips, sucking until I’m gasping, my thighs clenching on nothing. He releases them with a wet pop, his mouth glistening, and smirks like he’s just proven a point I’ll never forget.
“You wanted release,” he murmurs, brushing his thumb across my knuckles. “What you got was a reminder.”
I sag against the beam, wrecked, my body humming with frustrated need. But he doesn’t soften. He never does.
“Next time you pull your pants down for me, it won’t be because you snuck off like a guilty schoolgirl. It’ll be because I told you to.”
My hands shake as I pull my jeans back up, as if covering myself will erase the fact that he just made me fall apart without even letting me come. When I finally dare to look back, he’s leaning against the stall door again, arms folded, eyes hooded with satisfaction.
I can’t stand his eyes on me any longer. My legs feel weak, my thighs still throbbing from the denial, but I force myself out of the barn. The heat outside hits me like a wall, but it isn’t enough to cool the fire burning in my veins.
I need air. Distance. Anything to wrestle back the pieces of myself he keeps stripping away.
I wander around until I see a worn path.
I follow it down toward the pond at the edge of the property, where the trees break and the water glints gold in the late light.
I hear the splash before I see him, and my breath catches when I step out of the clearing.
The universe must have a sense of humor because Rhett’s in the water. Naked.
The sight of him steals the air from my lungs—the ripple of muscle across his shoulders as he wades deeper, the hard lines of his body glistening in the fading sun. My mouth goes dry, heat slamming into me all over again.
But then something sharp sparks in my chest. A wicked pulse of defiance.
Two can play this game.
I strip, letting my clothes fall one by one in the grass where I know he’ll see them later.
My skin prickles under the open air, my pulse thundering, but I keep going until I’m bare.
Then I slip into the water. The cool pond closes over me, a shock that sharpens my resolve.
Rhett turns at the sound, his dark eyes locking on me, and I see the hunger he tries so hard to leash.
I swim closer, close enough that the water laps between us, close enough that he can see the taunt in my smile.
“What’s the matter, Slade?” I purr, circling him slow, letting my body brush his under the surface. “You can watch me, but you don’t get to touch?”
His jaw flexes, his chest rising hard, but he doesn’t move. He just watches me the way he always does, like he’s trying to pin me to the water itself.
And it’s my turn to smile.
Because for once, he’s the one left burning.
The water ripples around us, cool against my heated skin, but the fire in his eyes is hotter than the sun overhead. Rhett doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, just watches me with that steady, punishing stare that usually undoes me.
Not this time.
I glide closer, close enough that my breasts graze his chest under the surface, close enough that he can feel my heat where the water hides it. His breath shudders out, low and sharp, but he still doesn’t touch.
“Look at you,” I whisper, my lips brushing his jaw without kissing. “Always in control. Always pulling me to the edge, only to shove me back down. How’s it feel to be the one aching, Rhett?”
His jaw tightens, the muscle there ticking, but his hands remain fisted at his sides. I drag my fingers up his stomach, nails grazing the hard planes of muscle, before I pull away again, circling him like prey that knows it’s already won.
I let my hand dip lower, skimming him just enough to make his gaze darken further. His nostrils flare, his breath ragged, and for the first time I see the restraint fraying.
I lean in. “You told me the next time I came, it’d be on your cock. But here’s the thing, Rhett… you don’t get to decide every time.”
Then I push off, gliding through the water toward the bank, leaving him in the center of the pond, body taut and eyes burning into my back. I rise slowly from the water, unhurried, every inch of me gleaming in the sun as I gather my discarded clothes.
I don’t look back until I’m dressed again, hair dripping, skin still humming from the game I turned on him.
When I finally do, he’s still standing waist-deep in the water, fists clenched, gaze black with want and fury.
I smile.
“Your move, Slade.”
Then I walk away, leaving him strung tight and denied, exactly the way he left me.